


100% Paper Cranes

by orphan_account



Category: Kagerou Project, Mekakucity Actors
Genre: Alternate Universe, Friendship, Fucking Up The Timeline, Gen, Rolereversal(?), Shinaya if you squint, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-11
Updated: 2015-04-11
Packaged: 2018-03-22 10:35:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3725590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU. Ayano had just wanted to see Shintaro smile. She hadn't meant to get caught up in this mess.</p>
            </blockquote>





	100% Paper Cranes

**Author's Note:**

> Warning for botched up medical details. AKA: I don't know how hospitals work and I didn't bother to research it. Why? Because I'm lazy. That's why. 
> 
> Also:  
> THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE FLUFFY, DAMNIT! FLUFFY! WHY CAN'T I EVER WRITE ANYTHING THAT'S NOT DEPRESSING?! GAAAHHH!
> 
> *deep breath*
> 
> I DON'T EVEN LIKE SHINTARO ALL THAT MUCH! I WANTED FLUFF WITH THE SIBLINGS! NOW THEY AREN'T EVEN IN THE FREAKING STORY T-T!
> 
> *gets hit with a hammer*
> 
> Alright, I'm calm now. But seriously though, this turned out amazingly different than I'd expected. I wanted to write fluff about Ayano and her siblings, with Shintaro making a cameo at the beginning. Than I suddenly realized that said cameo was 2000 words long and yeah... everything just kind of spiralled out of control.
> 
> It's also very weird that this somehow transformed into something that's borderline romance. I never write romance, because I generally prefer friendship and family. Also, I identify myself as asexual, so I have no idea how romantic/lustfull love is supposed to feel like, hence why I can't write about it. I don't even particularly like Shinaya - I don't hate it, but I just don't have much feeling for it. And somehow I ended up writing it. Huh. The writing gods work in mysterious ways.
> 
> So, the technical stuff:
> 
> \- This is considered an AU (duh). I have no idea what AU, however. It could be that the Kagerou Daze still exists and that they even have their eye abilities, but they don't appear in the story, so this could easily be a RealWorld!AU. Whatever it is, I fucked with the timeline.
> 
> \- I'm pretty sure I fucked up Shintaro's character, and quite possibly Ayano's. I'm not used to writing women as the POV, and I feel like Shintaro is too much of a jerk and not awkward enough in this story.
> 
> \- I know how cliché this is, but I hope I took it in an interesting enough direction that it's not that unbearable.
> 
> Wow. Long and useless A/N is long and useless. Usually I don't talk this much, but I seem to be in a good mood. Huh. Time to read something depressing, then.

The loneliness took the form of a red jacket. It seemed permanently attached to his body. He didn't talk to anybody, and the other students quickly learned to leave him alone, scared off by his constant frowning face. The only thing that seemed to accompany him wherever he went were his test scores, that were, without fault, perfect.

Ayano had set her sights on him almost the moment they met. Any other person would've given up within a week, but Ayano didn't hold the reputation of a pitbull for nothing. So she made it her personal challenge to see him smile.

The first attempt at interaction ended in a massive failure. It was as if she was talking to a red-brick wall.

The second attempt went the same way.

During the third attempt, he just walked away, without giving her so much as a glance.

After the seventh attempt, even Ayano's thick skull realized that she needed to change tactics.

Looking at his test – 100%, of course – she finally got an idea. She reached out to the perfect test and pulled it out of his hand.

"Hey!" he protested, but she held the test out of his reach. A wide smile spread across her face. This was the first thing she'd ever heard him say.

"Tu tu tu," she berated him, waving her finger as if she was trying to tell him something. "You're getting it back in a few minutes. Just wait."

His eye twitched, but he didn't do anything. Her smile widened.

Quickly, with hands that moved almost too fast to keep track of, she folded the paper. Again, and again, until she held a little paper bird in her hand.

"Here!" she exclaimed, putting the little bird in his hand.

He stared at it like she had just presented him with the meaning of life itself. Carefully, he picked it up and held it directly in front of his eyes. There was a strange gleam in those pupils.

"Do you like it?" the red-scarfed girl asked him.

He didn't answer. Instead, he just stood up and walked out of the classroom.

Ayano didn't fail to notice that he put the crane in his backpack, instead of throwing it away, like he always did with his tests.

~*~

It became their little tradition: they would make the test, they would get them handed back, she would make birds out of them. Shintaro didn't look like he cared about it, but at the same time he never protested and he never threw the cranes away. At least, not while she was looking.

It was a strange relationship they had, one built upon the wings of birds. But it was still one. And over time, it evolved. They started talking to each other more often, and more freely. Soon, they held full-blown conversations during the schoolday. But she still hadn't accomplished her goal. His smile was still hidden behind his frown. A lesser child would've given up, but not Ayano, who was determined to prove that her reputation was well-earned. Shintaro took the cranes home with him, and Ayano felt like she was getting a bit closer to painting that smile on his face.

It continued like that for a while, until Ayano finally decided to ask the question that had bothered her for a while now.

"What do you do with all the birds?" she asked him, holding his crane tightly in her hands.

"None of your business," he growled at her.

"You know that I'm the one making them, right?"

"I can do it myself, if I want to."

"Show me." She shoved her own test into his hands. The mark was less than perfect, not even a satisfactory, and Shintaro looked surprised for a moment. He looked at the paper, than back at her, than back at the paper again. He gritted his teeth and started folding the paper. Five minutes later, there lay a paper blob on his desk. It didn't look like a crane. More like a roadkill.

Shintaro had a faint blush on his cheeks. He refused to look at her, and instead opted to stare at his roadkill.

She picked it up and inspected it closely. Very faintly, she could make out the beak.

"You know what," she said thoughtfully. "I teach you how to make a crane, and in return you show me what you do with them. Deal?"

Shintaro turned his head to her and looked at her for a long time. She braced herself for the rejection.

"Deal," he finally muttered, making her heart leap a thousand loops.

Teaching Shintaro how to fold a crane took longer than she had expected. With his test scores, she'd assumed that he would pick it up in five minutes, tops. Instead, it took him nearly an hour, but after fifty minutes, Shintaro's desk was topped with lots of roadkills and one paper crane.

The tilt on his lips wasn't quite a smile, but it was closer than anything Ayano had seen on him so far.

With a feeling of triumph, she opened her mouth to inn his side of the deal.

The shadow of a smile faded of his lips as soon as she uttered the words. She half-expected him to ignore his part of the agreement and walk out of the door, but instead he said:

"Meet me tomorrow after school, and I'll show you."

Before she could ask him why, he'd already disappeared out of the classroom.

~*~

The next day, Shintaro honored his promise and waited for her before walking out of the classroom. They didn't say a word to each other. Ayano was too nervous, and Shintaro didn't say anything because he was, well, Shintaro.

They silently walked through the hallway, silently exited the school, silently drove their bicycles to their destination, and silently stopped before a large building. It wasn't until Ayano saw what that building was that she opened her mouth to speak.

"Why are we at an hospital?" she asked.

Shintaro didn't answer.

They walked inside and Shintaro told her to wait in the hallway. She did so, and just a few minutes later Shintaro came back and told her to follow him.

They walked through the halls, again, silent. This was a lot of quiet, even for Shintaro.

They stopped in front of room 313. Ayano was surprised to see Shintaro open the door and go inside.

In the room, two people lay even more quiet than Shintaro had been today. One was a young girl, maybe one or two years younger than she was. The girl had short, blond hair and a pale face. The man next to her matched that pale skin-color, but his hair was black, just like Shintaro's. Their mouths were covered with oxygen masks, and their arms were hooded to an IV. There were two machines next to them that beeped at the rhythm of what she assumed to be their heartbeat. Their eyes were closed.

Between their beds, there stood a bureau. On that bureau, there stood a few 'Get Better Soon!' cards, but they were barely visible. They were completely drowned out by the little paper cranes.

Her mouth went dry. She looked from the paper cranes to Shintaro in shock.

"What.. Who –"

"My father and sister," he said tonelessly. "Momo fell into the sea and nearly drowned, and my father went after her. They were both immensely lucky that the coastguards saw them in time."

Ayano knew she had to say something, anything, but the words wouldn't come out of her mouth.

"Dad and Momo both liked birds," Shintaro said, way too calmly.

Ayano's mouth finally managed to produce some sound.

"Don't talk about them like they're already dead! I'm sure they'll wake up soon."

Shintaro looked at her with a blank face.

"They've been like this for more than a year. The doctors say that the change of them waking up is less than 1%. They might as well be dead."

Without looking back, Shintaro turned around and walked away, leaving her standing there. Ayano stared at the 100% on the bird's wings, and it suddenly came to her how ironic that number was.

~*~

The weeks afterwards were awkward. They went through the same motions as normal, but there was no heart behind it.

It was like they were acting out a bad schoolplay: they said their lines, went through the acting, but everybody could see that they were faking it. Come to think of it, Ayano's life began to feel more and more like a story out of a bad romantic novel. Girl wants to impress guy, guy has depression, girl helps him out of it, they kiss. Except that Ayano couldn't help Shintaro, and that she wasn't in love with him. She just wanted to see him smile, but even that dream seemed to move further and further away from her with each passing day.

Shintaro grew even more gloomy and quiet after the third week of their awkward exchanges. He came to school on Monday, refusing to look or speak at her and went away before she even made him a bird.

After that, he barely responded to anything, didn't answer the teacher's questions and ran out of the classroom as fast as possible. He didn't talk to Ayano anymore, not even when she made him his paper cranes. She often wondered why he even let her make them anymore. He could make them by himself now, after all.

That's how it went, week after week, and before she knew it, two months had passed. That's when she knew she couldn't continue like this. Shintaro was the only thing on her mind anymore; she literally couldn't think of anything else. She was pretty sure that she had even written his name on her tests a couple of times.

So that schoolday, she steeled herself and ran after Shintaro when he walked out of the classroom.

She caught up with him about 100 meters from school property.

"Shintaro!" she yelled and grabbed his hand. "Wait a –"

Shintaro pulled his hand from her hold and continued walking, without even so much as glancing around.

She didn't give up.

"Wait a minute!" she yelled, again catching his arm. This time, she didn't let go when Shintaro tried to shake her off.

"Let go," he said. His eyes seemed more dead than usual.

"I'm not letting you go," she said firmly, grasping his arm even tighter. "Shintaro –"

"What part of 'let go' don't you understand?!" he yelled at her. Taken aback, she could only listen.

"Fuck off! Leave me alone! How long are you going to follow me around like this?! You won't fucking leave me alone, and it's annoying as hell! _You're_ annoying as hell! Go! Go fold some of your stupid paper cranes, or something! Beat it!"

Dumbfounded, she didn't do anything when Shintaro escaped her grasp and walked away. Once again, the only thing she saw of him was his back as he disappeared from the horizon.

Her legs couldn't carry her weight much longer, and she soon sank to her knees. In the middle of the road, still as the dead.

~*~

She didn't want to wake up the next morning. Her mother had to carry her out of bed – literally – and she went to school far too late. She didn't care. The only thing that she cared about was, once again, Shintaro. She didn't understand why he had been so harsh yesterday. They were friends... she thought. But what did they actually do together? They talked a bit, made paper cranes, but that was it. And Shintaro had told her plenty of times to leave him alone, right? Verbally and non-verbally. Maybe he really did hate her, but simply hadn't said it out loud before.

But that didn't explain why he put her paper birds next to his comatose family, or the ghost of a smile he had had when she taught him how to create those birds.

She had been so deep in her thoughts that she didn't even notice that she had reached her destination before the door of her classroom stared her right in the face. Trying to think up a valid excuse for being so late, she stepped into the classroom.

"Sorry that I'm late, but –"

She stopped dead in her tracks when her eyes fell on Shintaro's desk. Where normally a pair of bored, black eyes would've been, now stood a vase with colorful flowers.

It took a few minutes to process, but once it did, Ayano exploded.

"Is this some sort of joke?!" she yelled at the teacher, her voice resounding through the dead quiet classroom.

"Tateyama-chan –"

But Ayano didn't listen. She stalked over to Shintaro's place and whipped the vase of the desk. It fell in shatters to the ground.

"Tateyama-chan, please calm down –"

"He's not dead, you hear me! He's. Not. DEAD!" With each word, she stamped on the flowers, squashing them beyond recognition.

"Tateyama-chan!" She felt someone grab her shoulders and hold her still. She struggled to break free of the hold, just like Shintaro had done yesterday.

"He's dead, Tateyama-chan. His mother found him in his room yesterday evening. He stabbed himself in the neck."

"You're lying!" she yelled, pulling herself loose. "He's not dead. He can't be. He can't..."

Her voice slowly died out. She felt dizzy. She fell on her arms and legs. Something cut her hand.

"He can't be..." her voice was nothing more than a whisper.

She felt herself be pulled into an embrace. She didn't resist.

"I'm sorry."

And the tears that fell from her eyes mixed themselves with the water from the broken vase.

~*~

The funeral was a week later. It was very modest; besides her, only Shintaro's family came. She found it ironic that, even on his remembrance photo, he didn't smile.

The funeral was short, and not a lot of tears were shed. Only his mother cried. Ayano herself didn't. She wanted to, sure, but she had to stay strong. For Shintaro. She had to smile, like he never did.

The moment came that they could all say their last goodbyes to him. She walked over to the coffin and looked into it. She couldn't help but think that Shintaro looked more peaceful than he even had when he was alive.

Very carefully, she placed her last gift for him in the chest.

The crane looked just as lifeless as her friend.

~*~

That night, when she checked her phone for the first time since his death, she saw a lot of texts. Most were from her friends, asking her if she was okay, but one captured her attention. It was a short message. From Shintaro.

Her heart thumped loudly in her throat when she opened it. Maybe he wasn't dead. Maye it was all just some sick, stupid prank, some sort of payback.

_Go to the schoolroof_ , the text message said. _I'm sorry I hurt you_.

Then she looked at the date of sending.

Last week, on the day he died, just before six PM.

~*~

The very next day, she went to school, much to everyone's surprise, and made a straight run for the roof.

To the high fence that surrounded it, there was a plastic bag bound. With trembling hands, she detached and opened it.

In it lay at least a thirty paper cranes. On all of their wings, the words _Thank You_ displayed themselves proudly.

While her tears provided the birds rain, she wondered how long it would take to make one thousand of them.

~*~

She didn't know what had driven her to do it, but here she was, two weeks later, in front of the hospital. She locked her bike and walked in.

"I'm here to visit the Kisaragi's," she said with a determined voice.

The receptionist looked bored at her. "Room 313, Intensive Care."

"Thanks," she said, and walked to the room. She took a deep breath, and entered it.

She hadn't expected anyone to be in the room, outside of the obvious. But she found something completely different.

Next to an empty spot – the spot where once had laid a man – slept a girl. Next to her bed, Shintaro's mother sat. She turned her head when she heard Ayano enter. Her eyes were bloodshot, but she managed to produce a half-hearted smile.

"You must be Ayano," she said, and gestured for her to sit down. Ayano grabbed a chair and sat down next to her. They sat in silence for a while.

"I was going to pull the plug."

Ayano nearly jumped at the sudden sound.

"What?"

"I was going to pull the plug," the older woman repeated. "I was going to do it at the same time as my husband's, but Shintaro begged me to give her a few more weeks. The date he committed suicide was the date we would pull Momo's plug. I came into his room to take him to the hospital to say goodbye. Instead, I had to say goodbye to my son." She laughed bitterly.

"And now, I can't do it. I can't sentence the last of my children to death. She's all I have left now, and I can't let go."

They were silent for a while.

"I could've saved him," Ayano admitted after a few minutes. "I had wanted to talk to him, but he shrugged me off. If I hadn't allowed that..."

"He still would've died," Shintaro's mother interrupted her. "It had been his plan all along. My son was a genius. He wanted his sister to live, and he would've done everything to accomplish that goal."

"He also sent me a text message, before he did it. He said sorry. If I'd looked at my phone and got the hint, I could've saved him, whether he wanted or not." Her voice sounded stronger now.

"Maybe," Miss Kisaragi said. "But then Momo would've died. Either way, I would've lost a child that evening."

Suddenly, Ayano felt a pair of strong arms around her waist.

"Thank you, Ayano-chan. He might not have shown it, but you made him happier than he had been in a long time. Thank you."

Ayano chose to stay silent about the birds on the rooftop.

Soon afterwards, Miss Kisaragi walked away. It occurred to Ayano that the way she and Shintaro moved were the same.

~*~

On the first anniversary of his death, Ayano started her project.

They said that if you made a thousand paper cranes, you could make a wish. So she did. Every day, she made at least one paper crane, and lay them in a sealed chest on the schoolroof. Her bad grades were in stark contrast to Shintaro's perfect ones, but she didn't mind. She worked hard and stubbornly.

After a month, she noticed that she was getting help from a second party.

Her paper cranes doubled, and the new ones were a bit clumsier than hers. She knew someone was helping her realize her dream, but she didn't know who it was. That is, until two months later, when she caught her red-handed.

Ayano was out of school a bit early, so she went to the roof to dispose of her her crane.

The only problem was that there already was someone.

A girl stood on the roof. Her hair was partly braided, short and very blond. She wore a pink sweater, and her skin-color was much healthier than the last time Ayano had seen her.

The girl turned around and saw her standing there. Big, yellow eyes stared at her (eyes that were, oddly enough, the same color as her hair). The girl's face went red, and she bowed deeply.

"I – I – I'm sorry!" she yelled. "I – It's just – I thought – I wanted to –"

"Momo?" Ayano asked, still not fully believing it. "Momo Kisaragi?"

The girl stopped abruptly with talking and began to straighten her back, looking extremely creeped out.

"Erm, yes? How do you know my name?"

Ayano could barely formulate the words.

"I – I was a friend of your brother."

Momo stared at her like she was a pig with wings.

"Since when did my brother have friends? He was even more socially awkward than I am." She went bright red again. "N – Not that I'm awkward or something! I – I'm just a bit –"

"Weren't you in a coma?" Ayano interrupted her.

Momo took a deep breath before answering the question.

"I woke up a few months ago. Nobody expected it. The doctors said it was nothing short of a miracle."

Momo looked curiously at her.

"But, seriously, when did that freaky brother of mine manage to make friends? And why wasn't I informed of that, hè?!"

Ayano simply smiled at that.

"I befriended him while you were... asleep."

"Oh." Momo looked deep in thought. Then, she produced a big grin and pointed at her.

"Then you were the one leaving those paper cranes next to me!"

"No. that was Shintaro. I made them, though."

"Really? What's your obsession with these things?" She nodded to the crane in her hand.

"I want to make one thousand paper cranes," Ayano said, happily dropping the crane in her hand in the box. The 36% on the wing didn't even shame her.

"You want to make the wish, huh," Momo gave her a thumbs up. "Awesome! I'm in!"

"Cool!" Ayano grasped her hand. Then, she got an evil grin on her face. "Welcome to the Mekakushi Dan!"

"The Mekameka Dan?" Momo repeated, confused. Ayano smiled and pulled her with her.

"Me and my sibling's club. You're No. 5!"

"Wait, I never agreed to that! You never even brought that up!"

But her protests went unheeded and for the first time in a year, Ayano felt like everything was going to be alright.

~*~

A year later, Momo and Ayano stood on the rooftop. In their hands, they held the last two paper cranes.

"I don't know what to wish for," Momo admitted.

"Me neither," Ayano answered.

"I was going to wish for a possibility to see Shintaro-nii one more time, but..." Momo trailed off and didn't finish her sentence. She didn't have to. Ayano had wanted to wish for a change to see Shintaro's smile. But in the last year, reality had set in, and now she finally understood that that would never be possible. She had failed in her quest, and now she just felt empty, like a big gaping hole was inside her that never could be filled.

"He did it for you, you know," Ayano said. "He knew that if he died, you would be the only thing left for your mother, and she wouldn't be able to pull the plug. He died so that you could live."

Momo didn't answer. Instead, she filled her sweater with paper birds and climbed up the fence. Ayano looked alarmed at her.

"What are you doing?"

"Letting the birds fly."

Ayano stared at her for a few seconds, before taking of her own jacket, filling it with cranes and climbing after her.

They sat on top of the fence and looked at each other.

"On the count of three?" Momo asked.

"Wait," she said. "do you have a pen?"

"We're sitting on top of a fence on the roof of our school and you're asking me for a pen?" Momo asked disbelievingly. Ayano nodded.

Momo grumbled, but actually did have a pen. She gave it to her.

Ayano managed to get one paper crane out of her jacket and held on to it tightly. 46% stared at her from one of the wings. Carefully, she wrote 100% on the other wing.

"Done?" Momo asked. She nodded.

"On the count of three."

"One."

"Two"

"Three!" they chorused, and emptied their jackets.

Most of the cranes dropped to the ground like stones, but a few managed to ride the wind and fly away.

The 100% paper crane spread it wings and flew away, speeding on the wind, until it disappeared into the sky. Ayano smiled.


End file.
